How to change the administrator in Windows 11

An Administrator account can be a pretty powerful thing in Windows 11. Only an Administrator can install any app they like and access the whole raft of system settings, and when there are other users, an Administrator’s privileges extend to those accounts — so who gets those permissions matters.

How to change the administrator in Windows 11

We’re assuming here that you already have multiple user accounts set up on a PC — since there’d be no one to switch to, otherwise — and that you’re already logged in as an Administrator. With that in place, follow these steps:

• Open the Settings app and click Accounts.
• Select Family or Other users, depending on someone’s association with you. You’ll only see people under Family if they’re a part of your Microsoft family group.
• Click on a user’s account name.
• Choose Change account type, then Administrator from the drop-down menu that appears.
• Click OK to complete the process.

If you stop here, you won’t remove Administrator privileges from your own account. Rather you’ll have multiple Administrators, which can be useful as a fallback so long as you trust the other person.

How to disable the built-in administrator account in Windows 11

After you install Windows 11, it launches with a default Administrator account named — you guessed it — Administrator. That’s probably what you used to appoint new user permissions in the previous section.

It is possible to disable this account, though. Here’s how:

• Right-click the Start button and pick Computer Management.
• Navigate to System Tools > Local Users and Groups.
• Click Users in the main pane.
• Right-click Administrator and select Properties.
• Toggle on Account is disabled. Yes, that’s a little confusing.
• Click OK.

As a rule, you should (and can) only disable the default Administrator account once you’ve granted another account the same privileges. If you don’t have another Administrator lined up, you may be locked out of some options unless you turn to the Windows 11 recovery system.